We’ve got a long way to go and just 77 minutes to get there. And though we’re not doing anything that they said can’t be done, we’re doing it fun, fast, and with (a little) flair… and having some laughs along the way.

In the NEWS…

The Thing is making its way to the realm of board games with The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 and Mondo Tees is offering a special edition of the movie-based game this October. If you think that banana candy doesn’t taste like bananas, you’re bananas! You just haven’t tasted the right variety of banana — and neither have we — because they’re extinct. Dr. Ian Malcolm is coming back to the Jurassic Galaxy after doing a little dancing during the closing credits of Guardians of the Galaxy. Blondie goes under the sea as Debbie Harry and Chris Stein become the queen and king of Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade this year.

Smokey & The Bandit

From its premiere six days before Star Wars in 1977 to its wide release on May 27th, Smokey & The Bandit played second fiddle to the movie that changed everything forever. The second highest grossing movie of the year, this comedic action adventure is as iconic to American pop culture as its 40 year-old counterpart. Featuring Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, Sally Field, and Jackie Gleason, Smokey & The Bandit chases Bandit and Snowman from Texarkana to Atlanta as they bootleg 400 cases of Coors to win a bet with the loquacious Buford T. Justice in hot pursuit. It’s a ridiculous riot of racing and ramping in a black Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. And if you’ve never seen it, you might be able to catch it in theaters next week!

Aftershocks of 1977

Although the Pontiac Firebird debuted a decade earlier and the Trans-Am package had been in existence since 1969, the featured car from Smokey & The Bandit inspired a drastic increase in sales of Trans-Ams by nearly 50% in a year to almost doubling sales by 1979. The popularity of the car saw it featured more and more over the years including another black version of the ride being given artificial intelligence and the voice of Mr. Feeney as KITT in NBC’s Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff driving (who just also happened to make a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2). PLUS: shazbazzar avoids a horrific crash in a 1995 Trans-Am in a very unexpected (and unexciting) way.

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